Gods & Thieves ✔

47. Fear and Nobility

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As if in payment for the endless night, the sun is climbing up the sky this morning quickly and relentlessly.

Having convinced myself that it's better to get out of the house as soon as possible, before Loretto's mood has completely been ruined and I myself have grown as lazy as a cat, I finish my cookies in hurry. I get dressed. Wash face.

And while Lo is in the bathroom, I go downstairs, to the kitchen to pick up the bundle of food that our caring mom prepared for us.

I still feel euphoric, but despite my physical vigor, my soul feels out of place. Everything seems to be fine--birds are chirping outside, love warms my heart, but I still don't feel the serenity I felt at night. What's wrong with me?

Maybe I learned this habit from Lo.

This probably always happens when you achieve what you want and hardly believe your happiness. You're afraid that you don't deserve it, that it will turn to dust, which will dissolve like a sweet dream upon awakening.

But no. My feelings for Lo are not dust. And, therefore, there is no point in looking for fiction.

"Looks like you've grown up."

Flinching, I almost bump into the door. The voice pulls me out of my thoughts like a fishing rod when I enter the kitchen, and now my soul suddenly feels cramped not only in my body, but even in my own mind.

"Ariane?" According to all my calculations, there should be no one in the kitchen, but my sister is sitting at the table. Wearing her house robe, with a cup of tea in her hands. She's been clearly sitting here for a long time, and now she stares at me with an approving smile in her eyes.

"I'm proud of you, Eli," my sister adds, giving me an appraising look from head to toe. "But you look rumpled. Didn't get enough sleep?"

"Why aren't you at school?" I ask.

Still drinking her tea, Ariane just chuckles.

"I could have asked you the same question," she says. "You remember that you went to the same school I as do until recently, right? And everyone there is asking me where you are, what you've done and how to do the same shit so that they will be kicked out to work at Tik'al, where they don't have to take final exams."

"I'm going to have an exam. Shamanic Trials, I participate."

"Oh, so you and Tayen had Trials rehearsal last night?"

I was already approaching the table by the refrigerator, where Mom's food package is, when I stop again. Ariane's voice is laced with irony to the point of arrogant smugness.

Did Lo and I were noisy at night? Did Ariane hear Tayen's moans? My moans? I'm starting to hate the moment of silence, realizing that my face is blushing. What if everyone heard everything? And everyone knows that we... The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

I'm going to feel unwell.

An equally unwell picture immediately emerges in my head: that my Mom, breaking into our room early in the morning, was smiling not at Tom as a guest, but at Loretto's kiss-swollen lips. That Cale baked me cookies today because Kofi had talked him into being more lenient, and they ended up forgetting their revenge-obsessed plans for a while and mutually decided that their little brother had finally figured it out...What was it that Kofi said yesterday? ...Where your cock belongs, Eli. And cookies are a present in honor of my victory in the lustful field, because my brothers think that this is my first time.

But Ma...

Ma then, what? Still not chasing me around the house with a broom and not yelling at the top of her lungs just because she has a lot of work today? But tomorrow! Oh, tomorrow she would show up at Tik'al and right in front of Lo's eyes, she would list all my flaws in the angry manner of her edifying tone. She will rant that I am an ungrateful son who does not appreciate her labors, does not study or work, but instead spends his life on dubious pleasures, hiding from her behind the skirts of shaman robes.